Beacons are packets transmitted in a wireless local area network (WLAN) to communicate information about the WLAN and to communicate information about the capabilities of the sender. In general, IEEE standards relating to WLANs define how beacons may be transmitted in a single-tier WLAN but do not adequately address multi-tier WLANs. Further, the IEEE standards address how each individual node in the WLAN transmits a beacon without considering the relationship of beacons being transmitted by a number of nodes. Thus, there is not much synchronization between multiple nodes transmitting beacons. Because there is not much synchronization of multiple nodes transmitting beacons, nodes in a multi-tier WLAN may spend a lot of time performing a scan of neighbors, may not efficiently receive traffic, and may ultimately not see neighboring nodes. Because of this lack of synchronization, nodes in a multi-tier WLAN may consume unnecessary power and waste unnecessary capacity. Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved method of propagating beacons in a wireless local area network.
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